Debility; A Tragic Scene at the Pharmacy; Demonstrations

I went to my internist, Kirk, yesterday with the following short-list of symptoms that have gotten so bad that it’s hard for me to stay out of bed: general unwellness, headaches, nausea, worry, anxiety, trembling, depression, fatigue, increased pain, and severe insomnia. Such symptoms could point to numerous diseases, so he ordered blood tests.

Since I was there anyway, he gave me my monthly narcotic prescription early and said that he’s going to start filling it for 90 days, which will save me going both to him and to the pharmacy every month. I already have to go to his office four times a year for a narcotic evaluation plus I have to be available on 24-hour notice for urine screens. It really pisses me off (ha) that, after eight years on narcotics, the hoops that I have to jump through just keep getting higher thanks to America’s drug cops.

As usual, I had to wait a half hour at the pharmacy during which a skinny and jittery woman name Karen came in to pick up a prescription for tranquilizers. When the pharmacy tech said insurance wouldn’t pay for it, Karen started yelling, jerking her body, and slapping the counter. She said she was desperate, that insurance fouls her up every time she tries to fill a prescription, and that, “I know I’m psychotic, but I’m all alone, and no one knows how hard it is to be me.” She said a lot more, but because she had a speech impediment I couldn’t understand it. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to do, and when the right words don’t come unbidden, I remain silent for fear of making the situation worse. A pharmacist told Karen that she was scaring people and needed to calm down, yet I considered it obvious that the only person anyone had cause to fear for was Karen herself. When she finally left, she seemed near collapse and kept saying, “I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry; “I’m so sorry,” but no one responded.

I looked for her when I left the store, but she was gone. I wish I had asked her on the spot how much the goddamn drug would cost and maybe paid for it. Anyone can be broken, but if you’re broken in America, you better have money.

So what’s Trump solution? As is his custom, he contradicts himself regularly, but his longest running solution is to give everyone a woefully inadequate income tax credit that they could use to buy insurance. But what if a person has no income or only makes minimum wage (and, alas, receives no benefits) at McDonalds and therefore doesn’t owe taxes? Or what if a person can’t afford to wait until the end of the year to be reimbursed and is obliged to choose between food and insurance?

Actress and activist America Ferrera told the crowd at the D.C. Women’s March this morning, “A platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday,” and I thought she was spot on. Yesterday, another demonstrator said of Trump, “I don’t care what things he was going to offer me. He was such a soulless piece of shit that I wouldn’t have voted for him anyway.”

Exactly. Even if Trump had outlined specific solutions to specific problems (something beyond, “Believe me. I’m going to fix it. Everything is going to be great”), how can his supporters deny or minimize the significance of his pettiness, immorality, vindictiveness, megalomania, and predatory dealings with anyone from whom he wants something? 

Do all of those millions of Christians who voted for Trump really believe that Jesus would have done the same? I would like to think well of Christians, yet to know that millions and millions of them claim, on the one hand, to hold love for their fellow humans beings as their chief value after love for their deity, and then, on the other, to see them turn around and vote for a man like Trump, strikes me as a case of such rank hypocrisy that I can scarcely believe what I’m seeing. Supporting Trump isn’t a choice; it’s a sickness, a depravity. It irreconcilably pits Christians against the values expressed in the Sermon on the Mount by the very man whom they claim to worship as their Savior. This election has caused me to despise with my entire being the dominant face of religion in America. All of my prior criticisms of the church are as nothing compared to the contempt I feel now.

Why WOULDN’T America's Christians support Trump?

After all, why should they object to a bigot who used his four bankruptcies to stiff his workers; put his name on the fraudulent Trump University and other products with which he wasn’t involved; and, while contributing nothing to charity, funneled other people’s money into a charitable foundation that he used for his own benefit. After starting his run for president, he encouraged his supporters to assault people; changed his core beliefs on demand (sometimes in the same day); indulged in constant name calling (“Lying Ted,” “Little Marco,” “Crooked Hillary,” etc. etc. etc.); threatened to sue anyone who criticized him; admitted to sexually assaulting women (“Just kiss. I don’t even wait… You can do anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”); made one unstantiated claim after another; and is too dimwitted to complete a train of thought.

So why wouldn’t millions of America’s Christians vote for Trump? “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” Christ said, but while conservative Christians accept Old Testament “science,” they don’t hold with their Savior’s insistence upon virtue. For example…

They disobey Christ’s ethical standards while supporting a soon-to-be president who encourages the denigration of gays, blacks, women, transgenders, immigrants, Moslems, secularists, liberals, and environmentalists.

Their pastors endorse conservative politicians from the pulpit although laws governing the behavior of tax-exempt organizations forbids it (Google: “Pastors Flout Tax Law With Political Sermons”), yet their Savior commanded obedience to the law.

Their Bible tells Christians to put their hope in Christ, so whence comes their unquestioning trust in a man who says, “I alone can fix this” (“solve this” “understand this,” “figure this out”)?

When American Christians are sued for having broken the law by placing religious monuments on municipal, state, and federal lands, they belatedly claim that the monuments were intended as “war memorials.”

When federal or state law denies Christians the right to make religious observances a part of government functions, they ignore the law, because they know they can get away with it unless someone complains, and few people have the courage to endure the death threats, job loss, social isolation, and vandalized cars and homes, that come from complaining.

When federal law demands that Christian owned businesses provide birth control benefits to their employees and provide all people with equal access to their services, they simply ignore the law until they can get their state legislators to pass a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (21 states have done so) that gives them the unique right to oppress others.

All of the things I have listed are commonly done. In its dominant face, the Christian religion is in no way an asset to this country. It’s dishonest, power hungry, and manipulative. It is an enemy to compassion; it doesn’t help anyone but itself; it is rabidly opposed to the government helping anyone; and it regards any limitation on its ability to oppress others as oppression. It is fascism under the guise of Godly benevolence.

If Christ exists, where is he when his people are betraying him? How many millions have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed in his name while he remained silent, and where is he now that his American followers have put their salvation in the hands of a psychopath who can neither utter a sentence nor write a Tweet that isn’t filled with hatred and lies? No one is a greater enemy to Christ’s admonition to love than are the Catholics, the charismatics, the evangelicals, and the fundamentalists, people who profess to put their trust in the Lord of Love but whose real allegiance is to the Lord of Cruelty and Filth. Again, why wouldn’t America’s Christians vote for Trump? He represents them perfectly.